FITBIT is whack!!!

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  • Zaftique
    Zaftique Posts: 599 Member
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    I'm wondering exactly how a FitBit works.. if it's just an accelerometer, what if I tend to gesticulate wildly throughout the day? Is it going to think I'm running a marathon when I'm just sitting down and describing a zombie attack?

    I like the idea of the wristband, but I feel it would give me incorrect data with how spazzy I tend to be.
  • flynnfinn
    flynnfinn Posts: 209 Member
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    just to give background, i got the fitbit because i honestly thought my HRM was crazy. my HRM was pretty much giving me the same amounts for calories burned as my fitbit during my walks. i'm not a slow walker by any means either. i don't do this "walking 15min per km - walking the dog" pace. my average pace is about 9min per km so my heart rate is 140-150ish. time is tickin'! LOL!

    I'm confused about your confusion. You basically runwalk 7-8 miles a day and are astonished that you burn basically sedentary + 700-800 calories a day?

    i very rarely run. i only walk. very fast. i used to run...quite a bit but not anymore. i also use mapmyrun but set the activity to walking. it says my split pace per km is average 9min 30 sec. if i do run/jog, i average 7min per km. i guess it just all seems so exaggerated...either that or i just have no grasp on the human body. i'm not really sure what to say. i'm a small person...well, 5'6" and 125ish. i never really realized that little ole me could burn so many calories. sorry...i sound so stupid right now but i'm really being honest. :-/
  • toogy64
    toogy64 Posts: 2
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    I have my fitbit synced with My Fitness Pal. I only log my food in MFP.
    My fitness pal will do a Fitbit calorie adjustment automatically, providing they are synced and you only log food in MFP.
  • ifaber
    ifaber Posts: 195 Member
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    A person who takes 10k plus steps a day is considered active. Since you take even more steps than that outside of your other workout activities I would say you probably at LEAST need to set your settings to active, maybe even very active. I average anywhere between 12k-20k steps a day and a normal burn for those days are 2500-2600, and if I do a dedicated workout it will be more along the lines of 2800-3000 calories burned that day.
  • katro111
    katro111 Posts: 632 Member
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    just to give background, i got the fitbit because i honestly thought my HRM was crazy. my HRM was pretty much giving me the same amounts for calories burned as my fitbit during my walks. i'm not a slow walker by any means either. i don't do this "walking 15min per km - walking the dog" pace. my average pace is about 9min per km so my heart rate is 140-150ish. time is tickin'! LOL!

    Your walking pace is ~4.1mph or ~6.6kph. So yeah, your heart rate's gonna get up there and definitely yeah, you're going to burn a lot of calories.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    just to give background, i got the fitbit because i honestly thought my HRM was crazy. my HRM was pretty much giving me the same amounts for calories burned as my fitbit during my walks. i'm not a slow walker by any means either. i don't do this "walking 15min per km - walking the dog" pace. my average pace is about 9min per km so my heart rate is 140-150ish. time is tickin'! LOL!

    I'm confused about your confusion. You basically runwalk 7-8 miles a day and are astonished that you burn basically sedentary + 700-800 calories a day?

    i very rarely run. i only walk. very fast. i used to run...quite a bit but not anymore. i also use mapmyrun but set the activity to walking. it says my split pace per km is average 9min 30 sec. if i do run/jog, i average 7min per km. i guess it just all seems so exaggerated...either that or i just have no grasp on the human body. i'm not really sure what to say. i'm a small person...well, 5'6" and 125ish. i never really realized that little ole me could burn so many calories. sorry...i sound so stupid right now but i'm really being honest. :-/

    "Runwalk" means to walk fast. FYI.

    Also FYI, walking quickly tends to burn about 80-90 calories per mile for someone your size.
  • scubasuenc
    scubasuenc Posts: 626 Member
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    I have found my FitBit and MFP TDEEs to be very close to one another most days. They are also pretty close to what the TDEE calculators come up with for me. They are also very close to what my TDEE is calculated to be based on actual weight loss.

    Are you syching your FitBit with MFP? I do so and allow positive adjustments only. This gives you extra calories if the FitBit thinks you've burned more than MFP, but you don't get calories taken away if the FitBit number is lower. If your FitBit is consistently higher than MFP, perhaps you have your MFP activity level set too low.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    i should basically be eating like 2200 (based on fitbit's 2400 daily projection) calories because i'm only doing a deficit of 10%.

    Wait, there is great ability to confuse things when trying to sync Fitbit's TDEE method to MFP's non-exercise maintenance method - and then not actually use MFP's eating goal but your own manual eating goal.

    So you got an average TDEE then (which isn't accurate since you don't log strength training) from Fitbit and took 10% that figure, and manually set your MFP eating goal to that?

    And now you also sync the Fitbit over?

    So here's the problem if you indeed do that, which many do.

    You based an eating goal on TDEE that includes most of your exercise.

    If MFP sees a TDEE from Fitbit higher than it's non-exercise maintenance, it then adjusts the eating level up.

    Doing a setup like that wrong will cause you to wipe out your deficit, because in essence you are eating back exercise calories you already accounted for.

    That caught my attention, want to confirm you did it right.
    You can either unsync accounts and just manually correct for lifting on Fitbit site.
    Or do some setup on MFP so you are kind of maintaining that 10% deficit to TDEE.

    And from the size of your adjustments, I know you haven't done the latter.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    i should basically be eating like 2200 (based on fitbit's 2400 daily projection) calories because i'm only doing a deficit of 10%.

    Wait, there is great ability to confuse things when trying to sync Fitbit's TDEE method to MFP's non-exercise maintenance method - and then not actually use MFP's eating goal but your own manual eating goal.

    So you got an average TDEE then (which isn't accurate since you don't log strength training) from Fitbit and took 10% that figure, and manually set your MFP eating goal to that?

    And now you also sync the Fitbit over?

    So here's the problem if you indeed do that, which many do.

    You based an eating goal on TDEE that includes most of your exercise.

    If MFP sees a TDEE from Fitbit higher than it's non-exercise maintenance, it then adjusts the eating level up.

    Doing a setup like that wrong will cause you to wipe out your deficit, because in essence you are eating back exercise calories you already accounted for.

    That caught my attention, want to confirm you did it right.
    You can either unsync accounts and just manually correct for lifting on Fitbit site.
    Or do some setup on MFP so you are kind of maintaining that 10% deficit to TDEE.

    And from the size of your adjustments, I know you haven't done the latter.

    I'm not 100% sure I'm reading you correctly, but I don't think you're correct.

    MFP calculates an expected deficit based on your activity level+bmr and calorie goal (or sets the calorie goal based deficit; either way). When MFP adjusts for the Fitbit data, it adjusts your calorie goal to maintain the same calorie deficit.

    It doesn't really matter what your MFP calorie goal/activity level settings are. What matters is the calorie deficit MFP is set to.

    Go to Home -> Goals and look at the Deficit section. Adjust your MFP data to have the deficit you want, let your Fitbit sync in, and MFP will adjust on the fly according to Fitbit data to maintain that calorie deficit.
  • flynnfinn
    flynnfinn Posts: 209 Member
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    i should basically be eating like 2200 (based on fitbit's 2400 daily projection) calories because i'm only doing a deficit of 10%.

    Wait, there is great ability to confuse things when trying to sync Fitbit's TDEE method to MFP's non-exercise maintenance method - and then not actually use MFP's eating goal but your own manual eating goal.

    So you got an average TDEE then (which isn't accurate since you don't log strength training) from Fitbit and took 10% that figure, and manually set your MFP eating goal to that?

    And now you also sync the Fitbit over?

    So here's the problem if you indeed do that, which many do.

    You based an eating goal on TDEE that includes most of your exercise.

    If MFP sees a TDEE from Fitbit higher than it's non-exercise maintenance, it then adjusts the eating level up.

    Doing a setup like that wrong will cause you to wipe out your deficit, because in essence you are eating back exercise calories you already accounted for.

    That caught my attention, want to confirm you did it right.
    You can either unsync accounts and just manually correct for lifting on Fitbit site.
    Or do some setup on MFP so you are kind of maintaining that 10% deficit to TDEE.

    And from the size of your adjustments, I know you haven't done the latter.

    I'm not 100% sure I'm reading you correctly, but I don't think you're correct.

    MFP calculates an expected deficit based on your activity level+bmr and calorie goal (or sets the calorie goal based deficit; either way). When MFP adjusts for the Fitbit data, it adjusts your calorie goal to maintain the same calorie deficit.

    It doesn't really matter what your MFP calorie goal/activity level settings are. What matters is the calorie deficit MFP is set to.

    Go to Home -> Goals and look at the Deficit section. Adjust your MFP data to have the deficit you want, let your Fitbit sync in, and MFP will adjust on the fly according to Fitbit data to maintain that calorie deficit.

    I've always just eaten 1800 calories regardless of whatever fitbit adjustments are made. I don't eat back the fitbit adjustment calories. I only follow the deficit MFP gave me using the TDEE method. I do have fitbit sync with MFP but just ignored the extra calories. At this point, I'm ready to unsync them and just use the fitbit as an activity tracker.
  • katro111
    katro111 Posts: 632 Member
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    I've always just eaten 1800 calories regardless of whatever fitbit adjustments are made. I don't eat back the fitbit adjustment calories. I only follow the deficit MFP gave me using the TDEE method. I do have fitbit sync with MFP but just ignored the extra calories. At this point, I'm ready to unsync them and just use the fitbit as an activity tracker.
    What I found that worked for me was to set your calorie allowance in MFP using the TDEE method (just as you have), but change your MFP settings to maintain your current weight. Then the FitBit calorie adjustments don't transfer over, but your calories consumed in MFP do transfer over to FitBit.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    I'm not 100% sure I'm reading you correctly, but I don't think you're correct.

    MFP calculates an expected deficit based on your activity level+bmr and calorie goal (or sets the calorie goal based deficit; either way). When MFP adjusts for the Fitbit data, it adjusts your calorie goal to maintain the same calorie deficit.

    It doesn't really matter what your MFP calorie goal/activity level settings are. What matters is the calorie deficit MFP is set to.

    Go to Home -> Goals and look at the Deficit section. Adjust your MFP data to have the deficit you want, let your Fitbit sync in, and MFP will adjust on the fly according to Fitbit data to maintain that calorie deficit.

    Well, the problem comes in to what is the eating goal the sync between them is causing to increase.

    Say your TDEE as determined by looking at Fitbit stats is 2500 on average.

    So you set your MFP eating goal to 2500 - 10% = 2250.

    Now their MFP maintenance with no exercise is say 2000.
    Each day on average upon sync MFP will compare that 2500 to 2000, and give a positive 500 cal adjustment to what it is using as NET eating goal, no matter the fact you are treating it as gross eating goal.

    So now eating goal 2250 + 500 = 2750 eating goal.

    Just wiped out your deficit.

    The secret is setting MFP's non-exercise maintenance to as close to average Fitbit TDEE as possible.
    Then any compares are very close, and the Gross eating goal that was set will only be adjusted up and down more often as the day truly warrants.

    The other method is figure a TDEE from Fitbit on just the non-exercise days but typical daily walking and activity.
    Find the MFP activity level that causes the closest match.
    Set your eating goal to that non-exercise TDEE - 10%.
    And sync away.
    Now any adjustments that come over are all exercise or increased activity and should be eaten back.

    The only negative with that latter method is the fact your increased activity is NOT getting the same 10% deficit as rest of the day does, so those bigger adjustments are missing the 10% deficit.

    The former method is 10% off everything, with minor adjustments not including it.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    I've always just eaten 1800 calories regardless of whatever fitbit adjustments are made. I don't eat back the fitbit adjustment calories. I only follow the deficit MFP gave me using the TDEE method. I do have fitbit sync with MFP but just ignored the extra calories. At this point, I'm ready to unsync them and just use the fitbit as an activity tracker.

    Wait - MFP doesn't use a TDEE method, they use a non-exercise maintenance method.

    And you aren't using TDEE either then, since not accounting for adjustments.

    You have a great little tool there ready to be used correctly, just need manual corrections for some activity.

    Why guess at TDEE and maintenance, when that device is trying to tell you?
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    MFP will adjust your eating goal to maintain the target deficit. Period. That's the key.
  • CTcutie
    CTcutie Posts: 649 Member
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    i walk about 12km per day.
    i average about 16,000 steps per day.

    12KM should be way more than 16,000 steps, I think?? :ohwell: If I run 5K, I generally have maybe 8000-9000 steps on average; I would guess 12KM is wrong or 16,0000 is too low, possibly?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    MFP will adjust your eating goal to maintain the target deficit. Period. That's the key.

    Well, as OP stated, he adjusted the eating goal to a 10% deficit from TDEE, not block like MFP uses.

    If you aren't using MFP the way it was designed, it does not work out correctly unless you make some changes.

    My description above is exactly what I've seen people do, that's the reason I can use it as an example.
  • flynnfinn
    flynnfinn Posts: 209 Member
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    i walk about 12km per day.
    i average about 16,000 steps per day.

    12KM should be way more than 16,000 steps, I think?? :ohwell: If I run 5K, I generally have maybe 8000-9000 steps on average; I would guess 12KM is wrong or 16,0000 is too low, possibly?

    right now, I am at 16,700 steps and 12.94km.
  • karlalband
    karlalband Posts: 196 Member
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    bump
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    I've always just eaten 1800 calories regardless of whatever fitbit adjustments are made. I don't eat back the fitbit adjustment calories. I only follow the deficit MFP gave me using the TDEE method. I do have fitbit sync with MFP but just ignored the extra calories. At this point, I'm ready to unsync them and just use the fitbit as an activity tracker.

    Wait - MFP doesn't use a TDEE method, they use a non-exercise maintenance method.

    And you aren't using TDEE either then, since not accounting for adjustments.

    You have a great little tool there ready to be used correctly, just need manual corrections for some activity.

    Why guess at TDEE and maintenance, when that device is trying to tell you?

    100% agree with this... You don't need to guess anymore, FitBit is telling you your TDEE. Do you have a deficit set up in FitBit also? I have both systems set up to lose 0.5lb/week. MFP subtracted 250 cal from what it estimated my maintenance at my current activity level to set my goal. Now that my activity level has been raised to Active, MFP estimates my non-exercise maintenance to be 1935 - 250 = 1685. FitBit subtracts 250 from whatever I burn each day, including regular activity and exercise. If I don't "exercise" my FitBit Calories burned is around 2000, which is actually pretty close to what MFP estimates. When I do exercise or move a lot, my Calories Burned is more like 2200-2300 which FitBit subtracts 250 from and tells me I should be eating around 2000 calories. MFP gives me the 200-300 cal adjustment each day and I end up eating 1900-2000 cals. The two systems are usually within about 50 cals of each other at the end of each day, a negligible difference in my book, and I've been losing pretty consistently 0.5 lb/week since I got the device, set it up following good suggestions I had seen from both Jonnythan and HeyBales in another thread.

    TL/DR - trust the FitBit. Eat more food. Be happy and keep losing weight. :)
  • captmiddy
    captmiddy Posts: 147 Member
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    I have a fitbit also, and if I used the numbers it says directly I would gain weight not lose. It isn't bad but I generally do 1/2 of the bonus calories from walking. I walk about 20k steps a day during the work week and only about 5 to10k on weekends (before anyone questions I have a treadmill desk I walk at for about 4 hours a day). I think when it has the hardest time is when you are walking slow, so while walking your son you are probably not cruising along so your gain there is probably a little over exaggerated.

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